WHO ARE THE INDIGENOUS?

The United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human
Rights has adopted the following definition:

Indigenous Populations are composed of the existing
descendants
of the peoples who inhabited the present territory of a country wholly
or partially at the time when persons of a different culture or ethnic
origin arrived there from other parts of the world, overcame them and,
by conquest, settlement or other means, reduced them to a non-dominant
or colonial situation; who today live more in conformity with their
particular
social, economic and cultural customs and traditions than the
institutions
of the country of which they now form a part, under a state structure
that
incorporates mainly the national, social and cultural characteristics
of
other segments of the population that are predominant.

Although they have not suffered conquest or colonizataion,
isolated
or marginal groups existing in the country should be regarded as
covered
by the notion of "Indigenous Populations" for the following reasons:

a) they are descendants of groups which were in the
territory
of the country at the time when other groups of different cultures or
ethnic
origins arrived there;

b) precisely because of their isolation from other segments of
the country's
population they have preserved almost intact the customs and traditions
of their ancestors which are similar to those characterized as
indigenous;

c) they are, even if?only formally, placed under a state
structure which
incorporates national, social and cultural characteristics alien to
theirs.

(U.N., UNESCO, ref: E/Cn.4./Sub.2/L.566, 1982)

While this definition has met with general acceptance, there have been
some concerns voiced over its limitations.

The United Nations declared 1993 the Year of the Indigenous.
This was followed by a resolutions declaring 1995-2004 as the DECADE
OF THE INDIGENOUS.
The results of these two efforts has been a number of efforts worldwide
to address the concerns of the indigenous and has led a number of
documents
in the UN archives.
CLICK HERE FOR UN DOCUMENTS ON THE
INDIGENOUS.